The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was a radical labor
organization in the United States that was most active between the turn of the
century and the 1930s. The Wobblies, as they were known, believed there must be
radical changes in American capitalism to improve the oppressive conditions
that workers faced. Many IWW members believed in socialist or communist
ideology and some advocated whatever means necessary to effect change,
including sabotage and violence.

The Seattle chapter of the IWW was founded in 1905 and contributed to
the city’s reputation as a hotbed of labor radicalism. The local office
showed a keen interest in labor- and Wobbly-related activities across the
nation, but most of its activities focused on organizing labor within the
state. Beginning in 1907, the Seattle IWW undertook a campaign to organize
Washington’s lumber workers. Wobblies believed that the poor treatment
and low wages in the industry would make lumberjacks and mill workers receptive
to leftist ideas. However, the employers in mill towns and lumber camps fought
these attempts vigorously by screening out Wobbly workers and sympathizers,
using detectives, and directing vigilante groups. For the most part, the timber
companies’ efforts to drive out the Wobblies in the early 1910s were
successful, but World War I and the accompanying economic boom in the lumber
industry strengthened the hand of unions.

Everett had been one of the few mill towns where labor radicalism
remained strong in spite of the business community’s concerted efforts
to drive it out. Wobblies in Everett, joined by members of the Seattle IWW,
continued to deliver radical rhetoric and face vigilante beatings and arrests.
After brutal beatings of forty Wobblies whom deputies had taken out of jail and
turned over to a group of vigilantes, Seattle Wobbly leaders rallied 250
supporters to sail to Everett on November 5, 1916. Upon their arrival the
agitators confronted a force of almost 200 newly-deputized citizens. After a
heated confrontation involving gunfire, five agitators and one deputy were
killed, over thirty men were wounded, and an unknown number of Wobbly
sympathizers fell overboard to their deaths before the boat cast loose and
returned to Seattle.

Although most of the Seattle community and its mayor condemned the
Everett Massacre, the agitators who returned to Seattle were arrested and faced
murder indictments. However, none of the agitators were convicted and the
Massacre became a rallying symbol for the IWW and brought the organization
sympathy from many outsiders.

1919 was one of the most eventful and promising years for the local
IWW because of the Seattle General Strike. Sixty-five thousand of the
city’s workers, from hotel maids to garbage collectors, announced they
would not work until the federal government and local shipyard owners granted
wage increases to workers in the city’s shipyards, which had boomed
during the war. This walkout virtually shut down Seattle from February 4th to
the February 9th. Although the more conservative American Federation of Labor
was mainly responsible for the strike, the Seattle IWW nonetheless participated
and saw the strike as an omen of more worker solidarity and radicalism to come.

Instead of fulfilling radical dreams, the decade following the Seattle
General strike proved disastrous for the IWW With the war ended, the federal
government shut down its shipyards, taking away much of the strength of
Seattle’s economy, which in turn made it more difficult to organize
labor.

The conservatism and anti-communism of the 1920s proved even more
harmful to the IWW, as the events in Centralia in 1919 would show. On November
11th the American Legionnaires planned to destroy the local IWW office at the
end of the Armistice Day parade. Alert to the Legionnaires’ plans, the
Wobblies armed themselves to protect their headquarters. After a bloody
gunfight, the Legionnaires took over the IWW meeting hall and pursued the
fleeing Wobblies, castrating and lynching one of them. Unlike the public
sympathy that followed the Everett massacre, the Wobblies received little
public support after the Legionnaires’ raid in Centralia. No Legionnaire
served prison time for the murder or the destruction of the meeting hall.

The repression of the IWW in the 1920s came not only from vigilantes.
In 1920 the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the state’s
criminal-syndicalism law, which made it illegal to advocate crime, sabotage,
and violence as a means of accomplishing political or industrial reform.
Criminal syndicalism laws made it much easier to prosecute Wobblies and forced
them to conduct many of their activities underground. IWW members in Washington
and many other states faced prosecution for various offenses and often lost
their cases, despite the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union often
lent them legal support. During the Red Scare of the 1920s, federal and local
authorities were able to raid the Seattle IWW office with impunity, destroying
many of their records and files.

The Great Depression of the 1930s brought an end to the Red Scare and
improved the fortunes of the IWW somewhat, but the organization was not as
strong as it had been earlier in the century. A major campaign that the IWW
undertook in Washington was the organization of agricultural workers in the
Yakima Valley. However, local farmers managed to counter agitators’
efforts through vigilante efforts and with the cooperation of the local
prosecuting attorney. However, Seattle attorney Mark Litchman managed to defend
the agitators successfully through bargaining. World War II, and especially the
anti-communism of the postwar era, made it particularly difficult for the IWW
to function effectively. The Seattle IWW office closed in 1965.

Also includes some of the following: speeches and writings, reports,
incoming correspondence (1924-35), minutes, financial records of the Butte,
Montana office, legal publications (mainly printed appeal briefs in criminal
syndicalism cases, plus four volumes of briefs and testimony from
California vs. Richard Ford (1917-31), periodicals (IWW and
other), leaflets, scrapbooks, and other materials (mostly clippings) relating
to the Centralia Tragedy, Everett Massacre, the Seattle General Strike,
Landwehl, et al. vs. Equity Printing Company et al. (1924-25), the
Colorado Mine Strike (1924-28), and the Sacco-Vanzetti defense campaign. The
accession spans 1905 to 1950, bulk 1916-1939. Most of the files consist of
reference materials that the office gathered, rather than the office’s
working files.

The accession contains court papers, appeal briefs, letters,
pamphlets, clippings, and leaflets. Legal publications comprise a large portion
of the records. Many of the these relate to prosecutions under criminal
syndication laws and a large portion of these are from within the state. Many
of the materials in the accession relate to IWW activities outside of Seattle.
Also, many of the papers relate to the court battles that IWW members found
themselves in, in Washington and elsewhere. A large portion of these relate to
prosecutions under criminal syndicalism laws. Items from the national IWW and
other local chapters include minutes and reports from IWW conventions,
financial records from other locals, information related to IWW campaigns in
other parts of the country, and a large collection of publications from the
national organization. There are also items related to the major IWW events in
Washington, including the Everett Massacre, the Seattle General Strike, the
Centralia events, and the Yakima Valley legal battles.

William H. Adams, Governor of the State of
Colorado, et al., vs. The People of the United States of America, ex rel. Frank
L. Palmer, et al., Brief for appellees in the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals from the U.S. District Court, 1928

1928

2

State of Washington vs. Ed
Aspelin,appellant's opening brief to the Supreme Court of the State of
Washington from the Superior Court of Jefferson County, 1920

1920

2

State of Washington vs. F. A. Brown, et
al., respondent's brief on appeal to the Supreme Court of the State of
Washington from the Superior Court of Benton County, 1920

1920

2

State of Washington vs. F. H. Brown and C. T.
Neilson. Appellant's reply brief in the Supreme Court of Washington from
conviction for criminal syndicalism in the Superior Court of Benton
County

2

William Burns vs. U.S. Brief for plaintiff
in error in the U.S. Supreme Court from the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California, 1925. Criminal syndicalism

1925

2

Judgement of the U.S. Supreme Court. Petition for
rehearing afid for stay of mandate in U.S. Supreme Court, 1926

1926

2

State of Idaho vs. William Dingman. Brief
of appellant to the Supreme Court of Idaho from a criminal syndicalism
conviction by the 8th District Court of Idaho, 1919

1919

2

Harold B. Fiske vs. The State of Kansas.
Opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court on a criminal syndicalism conviction. State
of California vs. Richard Ford. Testimony, Vol. II, III and IV. Points and
authorities

2

State of Washington vs. Chester Gibson, et
al. Appellants' reply brief in the Supreme Court of Washington from
conviction for criminal syndicalism by Superior Court of Yakima
County

2

State of Washington ex rel J. B. Lindsley vs. John
Grady et al. Appellant's opening brief in the Supreme Court of
Washington from conviction for violation of injunction by the Superior Court of
Spokane County, 1920

1920

2

William D. Haywood et al. vs. U.S. Petition
for rehearing to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) from
conviction under Espionage Act of 1917

1917

2

Mike Hennessey vs. State of Washington.
Appellant's opening brief in the Supreme Court of Washington from the
Criminal syndicalism conviction by the Superior Court of Clarke County,
1919

1919

2

State of Washington vs. Frank Hestings and Elias
Matson. Appellants' opening brief in the Supreme Court of Washington
from criminal syndicalism conviction by Superior Court of Thurston County,
1919